


Keystone Gardens

by deepandlovelydark



Series: Ecstasy in Cosmogone [12]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Sunless Skies
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff, Romance, queer, the sigil for a place of warmth in the skies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-02-26 08:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13231917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: This isn't the future he ever saw coming. The rules of the Great Game strictly proscribe agency, after a certain age; one day they take you away from the field. Give you a suit. Chain you to a desk.This one is weird and mad and sometimes appalling: and he's so glad he's here.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...so this is how it goes: I did have a rather epic and complicated storyline worked out for "Ecstasy". However! I'm reappropriating it to use for an original novel instead. "Fulgent Engineering" was wonderful to write, and I'm very glad I did, but I honestly don't know if I'm ever going to turn all those notes into actual fic. 
> 
> But I couldn't leave the Tireless Mechanic without writing one more story...

The house at Keystone Gardens is warm, warm enough that the Herald leaves her shawl behind as she goes exploring. Her experience of the High Wilderness has been rather brief thus far, but she’s already learnt enough of trade-winds and cold-calling to appreciate the unconsidered luxury. 

(Wildness out here indeed, a place where no gods walk. Stimulating as a needle through the heart- but sometimes, that's what it takes to heal.)

In place of a staircase, a shining ladder leads down from the sleeping loft. For a moment, as she fumbles with her sash and slides downwards, she can almost think herself in the past again. That well-remembered ship, who served them so faithfully…she breathes a prayer for the reflection, every morning. 

These quarters aren’t quite what she’d have expected from the Tireless Mechanic. Everything’s a little too rude, carelessly garish. The parlour drapes demonstrate a lamentable lack of taste, and the larder’s full of cheap, insubstantial Urchin sweets to go along with more solid provisions. Just what might be expected, from a Tackety trader- 

and then she ventures into the winter room, and reproaches herself for the unkindness. Because here’s the Unrepentant Smuggler himself, with the Mechanic looking on. And no one who can inspire that much devotion in their lover’s eyes can be utterly shallow. 

He’s sitting on a crystal-door stove, playing guitar and singing a ballad about snow and roses. Neither acts as though it’s an intimate occasion - the Mechanic sprawls casually across a much-loved sofa, and the Smuggler’s voice cracks on a few notes, though his return to the chorus is smoother each time. But she’s wary of interrupting-

“Oh, morning!” the Mechanic calls. (Ten years on, and he still insists on sitting facing the door). 

Too late now. “Is it a ritual? Or an improvisation?”

“A habit,” the Smuggler says, putting down the guitar to join the Mechanic. “Mac and I have this thing going, where one of us tries to strum up a good old-fashioned bit of rock and roll and the other tells them how wrong they’re doing it. Of course it’s not really fair. He’s better on the guitar than I am.”

The Herald settles herself in a rocking chair (a cushion made for comfort rather than style, but then she needn’t look at it). “In that case, why do it?”

“Funny thing about exile,” the Mechanic explains, with a familiar, slightly wistful smile. “Culture shock’s one thing, but…it’s the little things you find yourself missing the most. Even the silliest pop song gets sort of poignant, when you’re the only two people who remember them. There’s a lot of things I just took for granted until suddenly they weren’t there anymore.”

“Like me,” the Smuggler says smugly. “You still haven’t guessed what year this one’s from.”

“Uh…1991?”

“Nope. 1994.”

“Jack, that’s cheating. You know that’s the year I left.”

“Was it? Oh, yeah…but that was later. Because it came out before ‘Stay’ charted, and I know you remembered that one. Her with the terrible glasses? Like the ones you were wearing when I first showed up.”

The Mechanic mock-shudders. “Lisa. That one I do remember, because this other Lisa I know was saying what a coincidence it was that she had the same first name as a rock star now, and I…”

They’re completely lost to the High Wilderness now, the Herald thinks. Wrapped up in a warm bubble of Surface-flavoured nostalgia. A younger version of herself couldn’t have resisted a touch of cynicism. 

Instead she nods, and listens. She has a taste of what their exile must be like, with her beloved Neath lost as it is. Drained of life now, with all her inhabitants fled to Albion and beyond. These two might just be the right people to help her change that destiny. 

Soon, now. Quite soon. 

But for now, she’ll witness their innocent, private ritual; and count herself content.


	2. Chapter 2

When she returns from her marketing (few wonders purchased, but many contemplated), the Mechanic answers the door, nose buried in a book. A chunky tome, bound in what resembles gant-coloured zee leather. 

“Something chemical? Or perhaps mysterious.”

“This? Aw, no, it’s just a Western that Jack brought along for me. Craziest thing he ever did in his life. Packing up two camels and smuggling all my stuff through the Mountain of Light, just on the off-chance I hadn’t died yet.” The Mechanic holds it up, so she can read its gold leaf. “Sackett, by Louis L’Amour. Maybe you’d like it. There’s some unaccountably peckish talk towards the end.”

“That hardly seems necessary, when we’re all North now.”

“You’d be surprised. Locomotives get to being pretty desperate places when the fuel runs out.” He meanders down the halls to the small, overstuffed library, throws himself comfortably down on a cushion pile. “Mind if I finish this? I’m almost at the end, he’s smoking some gunslingers out of a cabin by stuffing his shirt down the chimney.” The Mechanic grins. “Now that’s a trick that works really well on a locomotive’s stack.”

“Ah. I’ll take your word for that.”

These trains, and Judgements, London at the zenith of its destiny- so much different, so far changed. None for the better in her opinion.

She studies the unchartable medley of books lining the walls, the few discreet and alarming pictures. One’s a small engraving, half-hidden behind a floridly dramatic shot of the Smuggler juggling unstamped ministry permits. The Unsettling Student, drawn even more doleful than she remembers and looking very stuffy.

“To remind myself occasionally,” the Mechanic mutters, noticing her glance. “That I did that.”

“You couldn’t have saved him. He didn’t want to be saved.”

“Not the point…” He slaps his tome shut, replaces it on a jury-rigged shelf. “I worry, sometimes. Whether building that engine was the best thing I ever did, or the worst...whether working out how to build an impeller that didn’t require sacrifice was worth his loss. But if I hadn’t invented one, somebody else would have done it worse, and we’d probably all be out here on locomotive engines running on nightmares and horror. So I keep going back and forth on that one.”

“Do you sleep at night?”

He pulls a face. “That’s no criterion.”

“Nevertheless. Flesh knows guilt.”

“All right, I do, but I think that’s more to do with my swearing off coffee for good. Y’know how it is, Herald.”

She does.

They let merciful silence fall for a little while; she finds herself hastening for another subject.

“So if your Smuggler came to you…didn’t you ever think of going back? To your Surface life?”

“Jack and I tried once. Stone wouldn’t let us. We knew perfectly well where the passageway should have been, but the mountain was sealed up slick as butter. Guess we’ll just have to wait for the ‘90s the long way around.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Then again, I’ve never heard of what you did, either. And I kept tabs on the Elder Continent. If anyone else had come down that way, I think I would have heard.”

His smile is uncannily brittle. “I’d say, let me know if you hear about a crazy Englishman with a penchant for disguises and murder...but those go for a dime a dozen around here. Want anything special for tea?”

“Anything that isn’t fish. Or fungal. The Sea of Statues isn’t as inhospitable as it’s thought to be, but the supplies certainly got monotonous after a decade.”

“That narrows our options a little, but I think Albion can provide. Remember that bombazine dress of yours I wrecked? You left it in the hold, I’ll have it repaired in Irem just in case.”

“As in, you’re planning to do this in the future, or are the tenses just muddled as usual?”

“As in, it’s upstairs in the storage closet. I’ll go get it and we can see if it still fits.”

“We? Are you planning to wear it yourself?“

He flushes, very prettily.

“Oh, you’ll never change. And then we’ll go out and paint the town red?”

“Done.”


End file.
